“La course d’Vlisses, son tragitte retour, &
deffaicte des amans qui poursuivoient la chaste & vertueuse
Penelope.”
What might not in this way be included within the wide-encompassing
grasp of the determined Emblematist it is almost
impossible to say; and therefore it ought to be no matter of
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
surprise to find there is practically a greater extent given to the
Literature of Emblems than of absolute right belongs to it. We
shall not go much astray if we take Custom for our guide, and
keep to its decisions as recorded in the chief catalogues of
Emblem works.
.il fn=img026.jpg w=250px ew=40%
.ca Horapollo, 1551.
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
.pb
.h3 id=sec2.2
Section II. | EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
.di img027.jpg 100 1.0
LEAVING for the most part out of view the
discussions which have taken place as to the
exact time and the veritable originators of the
arts of printing by fixed or moveable types,
and of the embellishing of books by engravings on blocks of
wood or plates of copper, we are yet—for the full development
of the condition and extent of the Emblem Literature in the age
of Shakespeare—required to notice the growth of that species of
ornamental device in books which depends upon Emblems for
its force and meaning. We say advisedly “ornamental device
in books,” for infinite almost are the applications of Symbol and
Emblem to Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, as is testified
by the Remains of Antiquity in all parts of the world, by the
Pagan tombs and Christian catacombs of ancient Rome, by
nearly every temple and church and stately building in the
empires of the earth, and especially in those wonderful creations
of human skill in which form and colour bring forth to sight
nearly every thought and fancy of our souls.
.if h
.li
.li-
.sp 3
.in 18
.ll 62
.if-
Long before either block-printing or type-printing was practised,
it is well known how extensively the limner’s art was
employed “to illuminate,” as it is called, the Manuscripts that
were to be found in the rich abbeys or convents, and in the
mansions of the great and noble. For instance, the devices
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
in the Dance of Macaber, undoubtedly
an Emblem Manuscript of the
fourteenth century, were of painter’s
workmanship, and afterwards employed
by the wood-engravers to
embellish type-printed volumes of a
devotional character. To this Brunet,
in his Manuel du Libraire, vol. v.
c. 1557–1560, bears witness, when
speaking of the printer Philip Pigouchet,
and of the bookseller Simon
Vostre, who “furent les premiers à
Paris qui surent allier avec succès la
gravure à la typographie;” and adds
in a note, “La plus ancienne édition
de la Danse macabre que citent les
bibliographes est celle de Paris, 1484;
mais, plus d’un siècle avant cette
date, des miniaturistes français avaient
déjà figuré, sur les marges de plusieurs
Heures manuscrites, des Danses de
morts, représentées et disposées à peu
près comme elles l’ont été depuis
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
dans les livres de Simon Vostre; c’est ce que nous avons pu
remarquer dans un magnifique manuscrit de la seconde moitié
du quatorzième siècle, enrichi de nombreuses et admirables
miniatures qui, après avoir été conservé en Angleterre dans le
cabinet du docteur Mead, à qui le roi Louis XV. en avait fait
présent, est venu prendre place parmi les curiosités de premier
ordre réunies dans celui de M. Ambr. Firmin Didot.”
.if h
.in
.ll
.if-
.ce
From Brunet, v. 1559.
A strictly emblematical work in English is the following,
“from a finely written and illuminated parchment roll, in perfect
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
preservation, about two yards and three quarters in length,”
“The Five Wounds of Christ.” “By William Billyng;”
“Manchester: Printed by R. and W. Dean, 4to, 1814.” The
date is fixed by the editor, William Bateman, “between the
years 1400 and 1430;” and the poem contains about 120 lines,
with six illuminated devices. We give here, on page 40, in
outline, the Device of “The Heart of Jesus the Well of everlasting
Lyfe.”
.il id=i029 fn=img029.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Five wounds of Christ, 1400–1430.
There follows, as to each of the Emblems, a Prayer, or
Invocation; the Device in question has these lines,—
.pm start_poem
“Hayle welle and cõdyte of eu̾lastyng lyffe
Thorow launced so ferre w^tyn my lordes syde
The flodys owt traylyng most aromatys
Hayle prious ♥ wounded so large and wyde
Hayle trusty treuloue our joy to provide
Hayle porte of glorie w^t paynes alle embrued
On alle I sprynglyde lyke purpul dew enhuede.”
.pm end_poem
An Astronomical Manuscript in the Chetham Library,
Manchester, the eclipses in which are calculated from A.D. 1330
to A.D. 1462, contains emblematical devices for the months of
the year, and the signs of the zodiac; these are painted
medallions at the beginning of each month; and to each of the
months is attached a metrical line explanatory of the device.
.ta l:15 l:40 w=75%
Januarius. | Ouer yis feer I warme myn handes.
Februarius. | Wyth yis spade I delve my londes.
Martius. | Here knitte I my vynes in springe.
Aprilis. | So merie I here yese foules singe.
Mayus. | I am as Joly as brid on bouz.
Junius. | Here wede I my corn, clene I houz.
Julius. | Wyth yis sythe my medis I mowe.
Augustus. | Here repe I my corn so lowe.
September. | Wyth ys flayll I yresche my bred.
October. | Here sowe I my Whete so reed.
November. | Wyth ys knyf I steke my swyn.
December. | Welcome cristemasse Wyth ale and Wyn.
.ta-
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
This manuscript contains, as J. O. Halliwell says of it,
“an astrological volvelle—an instrument mentioned by Chaucer:
it is the only specimen, I believe, now remaining in which
the steel stylus or index has been preserved in its original
state.”
Doubtless it is a copy of the Kalendrier des Bergers, which
with the Compost des Bergers, has in various forms been circulated
in France from the fourteenth century almost, if not quite,
to the present day. An edition in 4to, of 144 pages, printed
at Troyes, in 1705, bears the title, Le Grand Calendrier et
Compost des Bergers; composé par le Berger de la grand
Montagne.
Kindred works issued from the presses of Venice, of
Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, between 1475 and 1478, in
Latin, Italian, and German, and are ascribed to John Muller,
more known under the name of Regiomontanus, a celebrated
astronomer, born in 1436, at Koningshaven, in Franconia, and
who died at Rome in 1476. One of these editions, in folio,
was printed at Augsburg in 1476 by Erhard Ratdolt, being
the first work he sent forth after his establishment in that
city. (See Biog. Univ., vol. xxx. p. 381, and vol. xxxvii. p. 25.)
But the most thoroughly emblematical work from Ratdolt’s
press was an “Astrolabium planũ in tabulis,” “wrought out
anew by John Angeli, master of liberal arts, MCCCCLXXXVIII.”
There are 414 woodcuts, and all of them emblematical.
The library at Keir contains a perfect copy, 4to, in most
admirable condition. Brunet, i. c. 290, names a Venice edition
in 1494, and refers to other astronomical works by the same
author.
In its manuscript form, too, the celebrated “Speculum
Humanæ Salvationis,” Mirror of Human Salvation, exhibits
throughout the emblem characteristics. Of this work, both
as it exists in manuscript and in the earliest printed form
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
by Koster of Haarlem, about 1430, specimens are given in
“A History of the Art of Printing from its invention to its
wide spread developement in the middle of the sixteenth
century;” “by H. Noel Humphreys,” “with one hundred
illustrations produced in Photo-lithography;” folio: Quaritch,
London, 1867. Pl. 8 of Humphreys’ learned and magnificent
volume exhibits “a page from a manuscript copy of
the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, executed previous to the
printed edition attributed to Koster;” and pl. 10, “A page
from the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis attributed to Koster
of Haarlem, in which the text is printed from moveable
types.”
The inspection of these plates, and the assurance by Humphreys,
p. 60, that “the illustrations, though inferior to Koster’s
woodcuts, are of similar arrangement,” may satisfy us that the
Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, and all its kindred works, in
German, Dutch, and French, amounting to many editions
previous to the year 1500,[35] are truly books that belong to the
Emblem literature. Thus pl. 8, “though without the decorative
Gothic framework which separates, and, at the same time,
binds together the double illustrations of the xylographic artist,”
exhibits to us the exact character of “the double pictures of the
Speculum.” “These double pictures,” p. 60 of Humphreys,
“illustrate first a passage in the New Testament, and secondly
the corresponding subject of the Old, of which it is the antitype.
In the present page we have Christ bearing His cross (Christus
bajulat crucem) typified by Isaac carrying the wood for his own
sacrifice (Isaac portat ligna sua).” “The engravings,” p. 58,
“i.e., of Koster’s first great effort, occur at the top of each leaf,
and the rest of the page is filled with two columns of text,
which, in the supposed first edition, is composed of Latin verse
.fn 35
See Brunet’s Manuel du Libraire, vol. v. col. 476–483, and col. 489; also
vol. iv. col. 1343–46.
.fn-
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
(or, rather, Latin prose with rhymed terminations to the lines, as
the lines do not scan); and in later editions, in Dutch prose.”
“This specimen,” pl. 8, p. 60, “will enable the student to
understand precisely the kind of manuscript book which Koster
reproduced in a cheaper form by xylography, to which he
eventually allied the still more important invention of moveable
types.”
From a very fine MS. copy of the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis,
belonging to Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, our fac-simile
Plates IV. and V., though on a smaller scale, present the Title
and the first Pair of devices with their text. The work is in
twenty-nine chapters, and to each there are four devices in four
columns, with appropriate explanations in Latin verse, and at
the foot of the columns are the references to the Old or the
New Testament.
The manuscript entitled “De Volueribus, sive de tribus
Columbis,”—Concerning Birds, or the Three Doves, in the library
“du Grand Seminaire,” at Bruges, is also an emblem-book.
It is excellently illuminated, and the workmanship is probably
of the thirteenth century. (See the Whitney Reprint,
p. xxxii.)
.pb
.dv class='illo'
.rj
Plate 4
.il fn=img031.jpg w=333px ew=80%
.ca Title Page from a M.S.: “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”
.dv-
.pb
.dv class='illo'
.rj
Plate 5
.il fn=img032.jpg w=400px ew=80%
.ca Leaf 31 from a M.S. “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”
.dv-
.pb
The illuminated Missal,[36] executed in 1425 for John, Duke of
Bedford and regent of France, according to the account published
of it by Richard Gough, 4to, London, 1794, and by
others, abounds in emblem devices. It contains “fifty-nine
large miniatures, which nearly occupy the page, and above a
thousand small ones in circles of about an inch and half
diameter, displayed in brilliant borders of golden foliage, with
variegated flowers, &c. At the bottom of every page are two
lines in blue and gold letters, which explain the subject of each
.bn 069.png
.bn 070.png
.bn 071.png
.bn 072.png
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
miniature.” “The Missal,” says Dibdin, “frequently displays
the arms of these noble personages,” (John, Duke of Bedford,
and of his wife Jane, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy,)
“and also affords a pleasing testimony of the affectionate
gallantry of the pair: the motto of the former being ‘A
VOUS ENTIER;’ that of the latter, ‘J’EN SUIS CONTENTE.’”
Among its ornaments are emblems or symbols of the twelve
months, and a large variety of paintings derived from the
Sacred Scriptures, many of which possess an emblematical
meaning.
.fn 36
Sold at the Duchess of Portland’s sale in 1789 to Mr. Edwards for £215,—and
at his sale in 1815 to the Duke of Marlborough for £637 15s. See Dibdin’s
“Bibliomania,” ed. 1811, p. 253; and Timperley’s Dictionary of Printers and
Printing, ed. 1839, p. 93.
.fn-
.sp 2
Not aiming at any exhaustive method in the information we
gather and impart respecting Emblem works and editions
previous to the year A.D. 1500, we pass by the very numerous
other instances in support of our theme which a search into
manuscripts would supply. The “Block-Books,”[37] which, in the
main, are especially emblematical, we next consider. We select
two instances as representative of the whole set;—namely, the
“Biblia Pauperum,” Bibles of the Poor, and the “Ars Memorandi,”
The Art of Remembering.
.fn 37
One of the earliest and most curious of the Block-books, Biblia Pauperum,
has been reproduced in fac-simile by Mr. J. Ph. Berjeau, from a copy in the British
Museum.
.fn-
In his “Bibliographical Decameron,” vol. i. p. 160,
Dibdin tells us, “The earliest printed book, containing text and
engravings illustrative of scriptural subjects, is called the Histories
of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther. This was executed
in the German language, and was printed by Pfister at Bamberg
in 1462. It is among the rarest of typographical curiosities in
existence.” Dibdin’s dictum is considerably modified, if not set
aside, by Noel Humphreys; who, though affirming, p. 41, that
“a late German edition of the Biblia Pauperum has the date
1475, but that before that period editions had been printed at
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
the regular press with moveable types, as, for instance, that of
Pfister, printed at Bamberg in 1462,”—yet had previously declared,
p. 39, “many suppose that Laurens Koster, of Haarlem,
who afterwards invented moveable types, was one of the earliest
engravers of Block-books, and that in fact the Biblia Pauperum
was actually his work.” “The period of its execution
may probably be estimated as lying between 1410 and 1420:
probably earlier, but certainly not later.”
The earliest editions of these Biblia Pauperum contain
forty leaves, the later editions fifty, printed only on one side.
Opposite to p. 40, Noel Humphreys gives, pl. 2, “A Page from
the Biblia Pauperum generally supposed to be one of the
earliest block-books.”
.dv class='illo'
.rj
Plate 6
.il fn=img033.jpg w=400px ew=100%
.ca A Page from the “Biblia Pauperum” generally supposed one of the earliest Block Books
.dv-
Availing ourselves of the Author’s remarks, p. 40, we yet
prefer, on account of some inaccuracies in his decyphering the
Latin contractions, giving our own description of this plate.
The page is in three divisions, all in the Gothic decorative style,
with separating archways between the subjects. In the upper
division, in the centre, are seated, each in his niche, “Isaya” and
“Dauid.” (See Plate VI.) In the upper corners, on the right
hand of the first, and on the left hand of the second, are Latin
inscriptions,—the former relating to Eve’s seed bruising the
serpent’s head, Genesis iii. c., and the latter to Gideon’s fleece
saturated with dew, Judges vi. c. The middle compartment is a
triptych, consisting of Eve’s Temptation, the Annunciation by
the Angel to the Blessed Virgin; and Gideon in his armour, on
his knees, with his shield on the ground, watching the fleece.
Over Eve’s Temptation there is a scroll issuing from Isaiah’s
niche, and having this inscription: “Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet
filium,”—Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, Is. vii. 14;
Eve stands near the tree of life, emblematized by God the
Father among the branches,—and erect before her is the serpent,
almost on the tip of its tail, with its body slightly curved. In
.bn 075.png
.bn 076.png
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
//found text of Latin quotes at http://www.teol.ku.dk/akh/Pauperum/T01.htm
the Annunciation appears a ray of light breathed upon the
Virgin from God the Father seated in the clouds, and in the ray
are the dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, descending, and an
infant Christ bearing his cross; the Angel stands before Mary
addressing to her the salutation, “Ave gratiâ plena, dominus
tecum,”—Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee, Luke i. 28; and
Mary, seated with a book on her knees, and her hands devoutly
crossed on her breast, replies, “Ecce, ancilla domini, fiat mihi,”—Behold,
the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me, Luke i. 38. Of
Gideon and the fleece little needs be said, except that over him
from the niche of David issues a scroll with the words “Descendet
dominus sicut pluvia in vellus,” in the Latin Vulgate, Ps. lxxi. 6,
i.e. The Lord shall descend as rain upon the fleece; but in the
English version, Ps. lxxii. 6, He shall come down like rain upon
the mown grass. The Angel also addressing Gideon bears a
scroll, not quite legible, but evidently meaning, “Dominus tecum
virorum fortissime,” Judges vi. 12,—English version, The Lord is
with thee, thou mighty man of valour. The lower compartment,
like the upper, has in the centre two arched niches, which contain,
the one Ezekiel, the other Jeremiah; beneath Eve’s temptation
and Gideon’s omen are the alliterative and rhyming
couplets
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column30'
.pm start_poem
“Vipera vim perdet,
Sine vi pariente puella.”
.pm end_poem
.dv-
.dv class='column10'
and
.dv-
.dv class='column30'
.pm start_poem
“Rore madet vellus
Permansit arida tellus;”[38]
.pm end_poem
.dv-
.dv-
and beneath the Annunciation, “Virgo salutatur, Innupta
manens gravidatur.”
.fn 38
Mr. Humphreys reads “Pluviam sicut arida tellus;” but in this, as in two or
three other instances in this pl. 2, and p. 40, a botanical lens will show that the
readings are those which I have given. I desire here to express to him my obligation
for the courteous permission to make use of pl. 2, p. 40, of his work, for a photolith
(see #Plate VI.:plate06#), to illustrate my remarks.
.fn-
From Ezekiel’s niche issues the scroll, Ez. xliv. 2, “Porta hæc
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
clausa erit, et non aperietur;” and from Jeremiah’s, xxxi. 22,
“Creavit dominus novum super terram, femina circumdabit
virum.”
It requires no argument to prove the emblematical nature of
the middle compartment of this page from the Biblia Pauperum;
and the texts on scrolls are but the accessories to the
devices, and serve only the more clearly to mark this Block-book
as an Emblem-book.
.dv class='illo'
.rj
Plate 7
.il fn=img034.jpg w=400px ew=100%
.ca S. John the Evangelist. 1st edition Block Book from the Corser Collection.
.dv-
.dv class='illo'
.rj
Plate 8
.il fn=img035.jpg w=500px ew=100%
.ca A Page of the Apocalypse from Block Book in the Corser Collection.
.dv-
.sp 2
Passing by similar Block-books, as The Book of Canticles,
and The Apocalypse of St. John, we will conclude the subject
with a notice of Humphreys’ pl. 5, following p. 42 of his
text; it is “A Subject from the Block-book entitled ‘Ars
memorandi,’ executed probably at the beginning of the fifteenth
century.”
“The entire work,” we are informed, p. 42, “consists of the
symbols of the four evangelists, each occupying a page, and
being most grotesquely treated, the bull of St. Luke and the
lion of St. Mark standing upright on their hind legs. These
symbols are surrounded with various objects, calculated to recall
the leading events in their respective Gospels.”
But the whole passage in explanation of the Plate is so much
to our purpose, that we ask pardon of the author for inserting it
entire. He says:—
.pm start_quote
“The page I have selected for reproduction is the fourth ‘image or
symbol’ of St. Matthew—the Angel. The objects grouped around are many
of them very curious, and, without the assistance of the accompanying
explanations, would certainly not serve to aid the memory of the modern
Biblical students. The symbolic Angel holds in the left hand objects numbered
18, which by the explanation we learn to be the sun and moon,
accompanied by an unusual arrangement of stars and planets; intended to
recall the passage, ‘there were signs in the sun and moon’—erant signa
in sole et luna. I give the text of monkish explanation in MS. No. 19, the
clasped hands, represents marriage, in reference to the generations of the
Ancestors of Christ as enumerated by St. Matthew. No. 20, the cockle
.bn 079.png
.bn 080.png
.bn 081.png
.bn 082.png
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
shell and the bunch of grapes are emblems of travelling and pilgrimage, and
appear to represent the flight into Egypt; 21, the head of an ass, is intended
to recall the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem riding on an ass; 22, a table,
with bread-knife and drinking cup, recalls the Last Supper (Cæna magna);
and the accompanying symbol, without a number, represents the census
rendered to Cæsar.”[39]
.pm end_quote
.fn 39
To follow out the subject of the Biblia Pauperum, or of Block-books in
general, the Reader may consult Sotheby’s Principia typographica, The Block-Books,
&c., 3 vols. 4to, London, 1858; Dibdin’s Bibliotheca Spenseriana, 4 vols. London,
1814, 1815; or Berjeau’s Biblia Pauperum, a fac-simile with an historical introduction,
4to: Trübner, London, 1859.
.fn-
With great kindness Mr. Corser, of Stand, offered me, in the
spring of 1868, the use of a very choice Block-book, soon after
sold for £415, entitled Historia S. Joan. Euangelist. per Figuras,
and which is, I believe, the very copy from which Sotheby’s
specimens of the work are taken. Whether it be the “editio
princeps,” as a former owner claimed it to be, is doubted
on merely conjectural grounds; but a most precious copy it
is, internally vindicating its claim to priority. The volume
measures 2.82 decimetres by 2.14; or 11 inches by 8.42. There
are forty-eight leaves, in perfect preservation, printed on one
side. The figures, all coloured, relate either to the traditions
and legends of the Evangelist, or to the visions of the
Apocalypse, the former being simply pictorial, the latter emblematical.
The two Plates uncoloured (Plate #VII:plate07#. and Plate #VIII:plate08#.)
very clearly show the difference between the mere drawing
and the device. The pictures of the Evangelist preaching, of
Drusiana being baptized, and of the search after John, have
no meaning beyond the historical or legendary event;—but
the two wings of an eagle given to the woman, of the angel
flying with a book above the tree of life, of the dragon persecuting
the woman, and of the mother-church passing
into the desert: these have a meaning beyond that of the
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
figures delineated;—they are emblematical of hidden truths;—so
are all the other plates of this Block-book which represent
the visions of the Apocalypse. The date is probably
1420 to 1425.
The Bodleian Library at Oxford is very rich in this particular
Block-book, possessing no fewer than three copies of the History
of S. John the Evangelist. Among its treasures, however, is a
MS. on the same subject, worth them all by reason of its beauty
and exquisite finish, which the Block-books certainly do not
claim. This MS., on fine vellum and finely drawn and illuminated,
is said to have been written in the twelfth century, and
to have belonged to Henry II.
But the printing with moveable types is firmly established,
and Emblem-books are among its earliest productions. At
Bamberg, a city on the Regnitz, near its influx into the Main,
the first purely German book was printed in 1461, by the same
Pfister who published an edition of the Biblia Pauperum, and
who probably learned his art at Mayence with Guttenberg
himself. The work in question was a Collection of eighty-five
Fables in German, with 101 vignettes cut on wood, each
accompanied by a German text of rhyming verses. The first
device, says Brunet, vol. i. p. 1096, represents three apes and
a tree, and the verses begin with—
.pm start_poem
“Once on a time came an ape (gerãt) upright.”
.pm end_poem
The colophon, or subscription, at the end informs us,
.pm start_poem
“At Bamberg this little book ended is
After the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When one counts a thousand four hundred year,
And to it, as truth, one and sixty more,
On the day of holy Valentine;
God shield us from the wrath divine. Amen.”
.pm end_poem
The fables were collected by Ulric Boner, a Dominican friar
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
of Bonn, in the thirteenth or at the beginning of the fourteenth
century. Their chief value is that they present the most precious
remains of the Minnesingers, or German Troubadours, and
possess much grace, and “une moralité piquante.” See Biographie
Universelle, vol. v. pp. 97, 98: Paris, 1812; and vol. xxxiii.
p. 584: Paris, 1823.
Of Æsop’s Fables in Greek, the Milan edition, about A.D.
1480, was the earliest. There had been Latin versions, previously
at Rome in 1473, at Bologna and Antwerp in 1486,
and elsewhere. The German translation appeared in 1473, the
Italian in 1479, the French and the English in 1484, and the
Spanish in 1489. Besides these there were at least thirty other
editions previous to the year 1500.
It has been doubted if Fables should be classed among
the Emblem Literature,—but whether nude, as other emblems
have been named when unclothed in the ornaments of wood
or copper engravings, or adorned with richly embellished
devices, they are, as Whitney would name them, naturally
emblematical. Apart from whatever artistic skill can effect
for them, they have in themselves meanings to be evolved
different from those which the words convey. The Lion,
the Fox, and the Ass are not simply names for the
veritable animals, but emblems of different characters and
qualities among the human race; they symbolize moral
sentiments and actions, and when we add the figures of the
creatures, though we may make pleasing and significant
pictures, we do little for the real development of the
emblems.
Books of Fables, however, are so numerous that they and
their editors may be counted by hundreds; and as Dibdin
intimates, the Bibliomaniac who had gathered up all the editions
of Æsop in nearly all the languages of the civilized world,
would have formed a very considerable library. Only on a few
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
occasions therefore shall we make mention of books of Fables in
our present inquiries.
We shall not however pass unnoticed, since it belongs
especially to this period, the “Dyalogus Creaturarum,” or,
Dialogues of the Creatures, a collection of Latin Fables,
attributed in the fourteenth century to Nicolas Pergaminus,
first printed at Gouda in Holland by Gerard Leeu in 1480,
and at Stockholm by John Snell in 1483. (See Brunet, vol. ii.
p. 674.) A French version, by Colard Mansion, was issued at
Lyons in 1482, Dialogue des Creatures moralizie; and an
English version, about 1520, by J. Rastall, “Powly’s Churche,”
London, namely, “The Dialogue of Creatures moralyzed, of
late translated out of latyn in to our English tonge.”
.il id=i037 fn=img037.jpg w=450px ew=90%
.ca Dyalogus Creat., ed. 1480.
There were various editions and modifications of the work,[40]
but perhaps the contrast between them cannot be better pointed
out than by selecting the Fable of the Wolf and the Ass from
the Gouda edition of 1480, and also from the Antwerp edition
of 1584. The original edition, with the woodcut on the next
page in mere outline, tells in simple Latin prose how a wolf and
an ass were sawing a log of wood together. From good nature
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
the ass worked up above, the wolf through maliciousness
down below, desiring to find an opportunity for devouring the
ass; therefore he complained that the ass was sending the
sawdust into his eyes. The ass replied, “It is not I who am
doing this,—I only guide the saw. If you wish to saw up
above I am content,—I will work faithfully down below.” And
so they talked on, until the wolf threatening revenge drew back,
and the fissure in the beam being suddenly widened, the wedge
fell upon the wolf’s head, and the wolf himself was killed.
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
.fn 40
As in Nourry’s Lyons editions of 1509 and 1511, where the title given is,
“Destructoriũ vitiorum ex similitudinũ creaturarum exemplorũ appropriatiõe per
modum dialogi,” &c.; lge. 4to, in the Corser Library, from which we take—De
Sole et Luna.
.il fn=img036.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Lyons ed. 1511.
.fn-
The Antwerp edition of 1584[41] changes the simple Latin prose
into the elegant Latin elegiacs of John Moerman, and the outline
woodcuts of an unknown artist into the copperplate engravings
of Gerard de Jode, the eldest of four generations of engravers.
The Wolf and the Ass are made to emblematize, “scelesti
hominis imago et exitus,”—the image and end of a wicked man.
Moerman’s Latin may thus be rendered, from leaf 54, ed. 1584:—
.pm start_poem
“The Wolf and careless Ass a treaty made,
Both studious with a saw a beam to rive;—
The ready Ass above directs the blade,
The Wolf doth down below deceit contrive.
He seeks for cause the wretched Ass to slay,
And cries,—‘With sawdust much thou troublest me,—
The trouble check, or with these teeth, I say,
My spoil to be devoured thou straight shalt be.’
To this the Ass,—‘Friend Wolf, be not annoyed;
Guileless the saw I guide with might and main.’
But soon the long-eared brute would be destroyed,
When falls the wedge;—ah! ’tis the Wolf is slain.”
.pm end_poem
.il id='i038' fn=img038.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Apologi Creaturarum, 1584.
.fn 41
The Title is “Apologi Creatvrarvm;” “Vtilia prudenti, imprudenti futilia.
G. de Jode excu. 1584.”
.fn-
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
.ce
Moral.
.pm start_poem
“Insonti qui insidias struit, ipse perit.”
“Who for the innocent spreads snares,
Himself shall perish unawares.”
“The wicked man his nets doth spread
The innocent to take the while;
But who would harm his brother’s head
Doth perish from his selfish guile.
God will not deem him innocent,
Nor raise him to the stars above,
Who on unrighteous thoughts is bent,
Or neighbours serves with feigned love.
But after death to the fiery marsh
Of Phlegethon shall he be hurled,
Where Tartaræan Pluto harsh
With hated sceptres rules a world.”
.pm end_poem
As in the Blandford Catalogue, it has been usual to count
among Emblem-books the “Ecatonphyla,” printed at Venice
in 1491. The French translation of 1536 describes the title as,
“signifiãt centiesme amour, sciemment appropriees a la dame
ayãt en elle autant damour que cent aultres dames en pouroient
comprendre,” signifying a hundredth love, knowingly appropriated
to the lady having in her as much love as a hundred other ladies
could possibly comprehend. (Brunet’s Manuel, i. c. 131, 132.) The
author of this work, of which there are several editions, was the
celebrated Italian architect, Leoni-Baptista Alberti, born of a
noble family of Florence in 1398, and living as some suppose up
to 1480. He was a universal scholar, a doctor of laws, a priest,
a painter, and a good mechanic.
.sp 2
We are inclined to ask whether Gli Trionfi del Petrarcha,
printed at Bologna in 1475,—especially, when as in the Venice
editions of 1500 and 1523 they were adorned by the vignettes
and wood engravings of Zoan Andrea Veneziano,—whether
these “Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death” may not, from
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
their highly allegorical character, be included among the
Emblem-books of this age?[42] The same question we might ask
respecting “Das Heldenbuch,”—The Book of Heroes,—printed
at Augsburg, in 1477, by Gunther Zainer, who had first been a
printer at Cracow about 1465; and also concerning the “Libri
Cronicarum cũ figuris et imaginibus ab inicio mũdi,” a large folio
known as the Chronicles of Nuremberg, which with its 2000 fine
wood engravings, attributed to Michael Wohlgemuth, was
published in that city in 1493.[43]
.fn 42
An English translation, with wood engravings, appeared about the time of
Shakespeare’s birth, it may be a few years earlier:—The Tryumphes of Fraunces
Petrarche, “translated out of Italian into English by Hẽrye Parker knyght, lorde
Morley,” sm. 4to.
.fn-
.fn 43
See Brunet’s Manuel, iii. c. 85, and i. c. 1860; Biog. Universelle,
“Zainer;” Timperley’s Dictionary of Printers, p. 197; and Bryan’s Dict. of
Engravers, p. 918.
.fn-
The original “Todtentanz,” or Dance of Death, painted as a
memorial of the plague which raged during the Council of Bâle,
held between 1431 and 1446 (Bryan, p. 335), certainly was not
the work of either of the Holbeins. There are several representations
of a Death-dance in the fifteenth century, between
1485 and 1496 (Brunet, v. 873, 874); and there can be little
doubt of their emblematical character. The renowned Dance
of Death by Hans Holbein the younger we will reserve for its
proper place in the next section.
We must not however leave unmentioned The Dance of Macaber,
especially as it is presented to us in an English form by John
Lydgate, a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds,
who was born about 1375, and attained his greatest eminence
about 1430. His own power for supplying the materials for an
Emblem-device we observe in the lines on “God’s Providence.”
.pm start_poem
“God hath a thousand handés to chastise;
A thousand dartés of punicion;
A thousand bowés made in divers wise;
A thousand arlblasts bent in his dongèon.”
.pm end_poem
.bn 091.png
.bn 092.png
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
For an account of Lydgate’s Dance of Macaber, and indeed
for his version in English, we should do well to consult the
remarks by Francis Douce, in Wenceslaus Hollar’s Dance of
Death, published about the year 1790, and more particularly
the remarks in Douce’s Dissertation, edition 1833.
.dv class='illo'
.rj
Plate 9
.if t
.ce
Stultifera Nauis.
Narragonice profectionis nunquam
satis laudata Nauis: per Sebastianũ Brant: vernaculo vulgarique
sermone & rhythmo / pro cũctorum mortaliũ fatuitatis
semitas effugere cupiẽtiũ directione / speculo / cõmodoque &
salute: proque inertis ignaue̦que stultitie̦ perpetua infamia / execratione /
& confutatione / nuper fabricata: Atque iam pridem
per Iacobum Locher / cognomẽto Philomusum: Sue̦uũ: in
latinũ traducta eloquiũ: & per Sebastianũ Brant denuo
seduloque reuisa / & noua quadã exactaque emendatõe elimata:
atque superadditis quibusdã nouis / admirãdisque fatuorum generibus
suppleta: fœlĩci exorditur principio.
.nf c
.1497.
Nihil sine causa.
Io.de.Olpe.
.nf-
.if-
.il fn=img039.jpg w=400px ew=90%
.ca Title of Brandts Stultifera Navis edition, 1497.
.dv-
The earliest known edition of La Danse Macabre, originally
composed in German, is dated at Paris, 1484, but before the
completion of the century there were seven or eight other
reprints, some with alterations and others with additions. It
was a most popular work, issued at least eight or ten times
during the sixteenth century, and still exciting interest.[44] At
p. 39 may be seen copies of some of the devices as used by
Verard.
.fn 44
Langlois in his Essai, pp. 331–340, names thirty-two editions previous to A.D. 1730.
.fn-
The chief Emblem deviser and writer towards the end of the
century was Sebastian Brandt, born at Strasburg in 1458, and
after a life of great usefulness and honour dying at Bâle in 1520.
The publication in German Iambic verse of his “Narren
Schyff,” Bâle, Nuremberg, Rüttlingen, and Augsburg, A.D. 1494,
forms quite an epoch in Emblem-book literature. Previous
to A.D. 1500, Locher, crowned poet laureate by the Emperor
Maximilian I., translated the German into Latin verse, with the
title “Stultifera Nauis” (see Plate IX.); Riviere of Poitiers,
the Latin into French verse, “La Nef des Folz du Monde;”
and Droyn of Amiens, into French prose, “La grãt Nef des Folz
du Monde.” Early in the next century, 1504, or even in 1500,
there was a Flemish version; and in 1509 two English versions,—one
translated out of French, “The Shyppe of Fooles,” by
Henry Watson, and printed by “Wynkyn de Worde, MCCCCCIX.”
(see Dibdin’s Tour, ii. p. 103); the other,—“Stultifera
Nauis,” or “The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde;” “Inprentyd
in the Cyte of London, by Richard Pynson, M.D.IX.” (Dibdin’s
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
Typ. Ant. ii. p. 431.) This latter was “translated out of Latin,
French, and Duch into Englishe, by Alexander Barclay, Priest;”
and reprinted in 1570, during Shakespeare’s childhood by the
“Printer to the Queenes Maiestie.” At the same time, 1570,
another work by Barclay was published, which, although
without devices, partakes of an allegorical or even of an
emblematical character; it is The Mirrour of good Maners;
“conteining the foure Cardinal Vertues.”
Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Antiquarian, iii. p. 101,
mentions “a pretty little volume—‘as fresh as a daisy,’ the
Hortulus Rosarum de Valle Lachrymarum, ‘A little Garden of
Roses from the Valley of Tears’ (to which a Latin ode by
S. Brandt is prefixed), printed by J. de Olpe in 1499,”—but
he gives no intimation of its character; conjecturing from its
title and from the woodcuts with which it is adorned, it will
probably on further inquiry be found to bear an emblematical
meaning.
Dibdin also, in the same work, iii. p. 294, names “a German
version of the ‘Hortulus Animæ’ of S. Brant,” in manuscript;
“undoubtedly,” he says, “among the loveliest books in
the Imperial Library.” The Latin edition was printed at
Strasburg in 1498, and is ornamented with figures on wood;
many of these are mere pictures, without any symbolical
meaning,—but it often is the case that the illuminated manuscripts,
especially if devotional, and the early printed books of
every kind that have pictorial illustrations in them, present
various examples of symbolical and emblematical devices.
The last works we shall name of the period antecedent to
A.D. 1501, are due to the industry and skill of John Sicile,
herald at arms to Alphonso King of Aragon, who died in 1458.
Sicile, it seems, prepared two manuscripts, one the Blazonry of
Arms,—the other, the Blazonry of Colours. Of the former there
was an edition printed at Paris in 1495, Le Blason de toutes
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
Armes et Ecutz, &c.—and of the latter at Lyons early in the
sixteenth century, Le Blason des Couleurs en Armes, Liurees et
deuises. Within an hundred years, ending with 1595, above
sixteen editions of the two works were issued.
.sp 2
Several other authors there are belonging to the period of
which we treat,—but enough have been named to show to what
an extent Emblem devices and Emblem-books had been
adopted, and with what an impetus the invention of moveable
types and greater skill in engraving had acted to multiply the
departments of the Emblem Literature. It was an impetus
which gathered new strength in its course, and which, previous
to Shakespeare’s youth and maturity, had made an entrance
into almost every European nation. Already in 1500, from
Sweden to Italy and from Poland to Spain, the touch was felt
which was to awaken nearly every city to the west of
Constantinople, to share in the supposed honours of adding to
the number of Emblem volumes.
.il fn=img040.jpg w=200px ew=25%
.ca Picta Poesis, 1552.
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
.pb
.h3 id=sec2.3
Section III. | OTHER EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1500 AND 1564.
.di img041.jpg 100 1.0
LABORIOUS in some degree is the enterprise which
the title of this Section will indicate before it shall
be ended. Perchance we shall have no myths to
perplex us, but the demands of sober history are often more
inexorable than those flexible boundaries within which the
imagination may disport amid facts and fictions.
Better, as I trust, to set this period of sixty-three years before
the mind, it may be well to take it in three divisions: 1st, the
twenty-one years before Alciatus appeared, to conquer for himself
a kingdom, and to reign king of Emblematists for about a century
and a half; 2nd, the twenty-one years from the appearance of the
first edition of Alciat’s Emblems in 1522 at Milan, until Hans
Holbein the younger had introduced the Images and Epigrams of
Death, and La Perriere and Corrozet, the one his Theatre of good
Contrivances in one hundred Emblems, and the other his Hecatomgraphie,
or descriptions of one hundred figures; 3rd, the twenty-one
years up to Shakespeare’s birth, distinguished towards its
close chiefly by the Italian writers on Imprese, Paolo Giovio,
Vincenzo Cartari, Girolamo Ruscelli, and Gabriel Symeoni.
.dv class='illo'
.ce
Stulte̦ gustationis scapha.
.il fn=img042.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Badius, 1502.
.dv-
.sp 2
.h4 id=sec2.3.1 title='Before Alciat’s first Emblem Work'
I.—A Fool-freighted Ship was the title of almost the last book
of the fifteenth century,—by a similar title is the Emblem-book
called which was launched at the beginning of the sixteenth
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
century; it is, “Jodoci Badii ascēsii Stultifere̦ nauicule̦ seu
scaphe̦ Fatuarum mulierum: circa sensus quinq̃ exteriores
fraude nauigantium,”—The Fool-freighted little ships of Josse
Badius ascensius, or the skiffs of Silly women in delusion sailing
about the five outward senses,—“printed by honest John Prusz, a
citizen of Strasburg, in the year of Salvation M.CCCCC.II.” There
was an earlier edition in 1500,—but almost exactly the same.
From that before us we give a specimen of the work, The Skiff
of Foolish Tasting. A discourse follows, with quotations from
Aulus Gellius, Saint Jerome, Virgil, Ezekiel, Epicurus, Seneca,
Horace, and Juvenal; and the discourse is crowned by twenty-four
lines of Latin elegiacs, entitled “Celeusma Gustationis
fatue̦,”—The Oarsman’s cry for silly Tasting,—thus exhorting—
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
.pm start_poem
“Slothful chieftains of the gullet!
Offspring of Sardanapálus!
In sweet sleep no longer lull it,—
Rouse ye, lest good cheer should fail us.
Gentle winds to pleasures calling
Waft to regions soft and slow;
On a thousand dishes falling,
How our palates burn and glow!
Suppers of Lucillus name not,
Ancient faith! nor plate of veal;
Ancient faith to luncheon came not
Crowned with flowers that age conceal.
Let none boast of pontiff’s dishes,—
Nor Mars’ priests their suppers spread;
Alban banquets bless our wishes,—
Cæsar’s garlands deck our head.
Now the dish of Æsop yielding,
Apicius all his luxuries pours;
And Ptolomies the sceptres wielding
Richest viands give in showers.”
.pm end_poem
And so on, until in the concluding stanza Badius declares—
.pm start_poem
“If great Jove himself invited
At our feasting takes his seat,
Jove would say, ‘I am delighted,
Not in heaven have I such meat.’
Therefore, stupids! what of summer
Enters now our pinnace gay,—
Onward in three hours ’twill bear us
Where kingdoms blessed bid us stay.”[45]
.pm end_poem
The same work was published in another form, “La nef des
folles, selon les cinq sens de nature, composé selon levangile de
monseigneur saint Mathieu, des cinq vierges qui ne prindrent
point duylle avec eulx pour mectre en leurs lampes:” Paris 4to,
about 1501.
.fn 45
Be lenient, gentle Reader, if you chance to compare the above translation with
the original; for even should you have learned by heart the two very large 4to volumes
of Forcellini’s Lexicon of all Latinity, I believe you will find some nuts you cannot
crack in the Latin verses of Jodocus Badius.
.fn-
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
Of Badius himself, born in 1462 and dying in 1535, it is to be
said that he was a man of very considerable learning, professor
of “belles lettres” at Lyons from 1491 to 1511, when he was
tempted to settle in Paris. There he established the famous
Ascensian Printing Press,—and like Plantin of Antwerp, gave
his three daughters in marriage to three very celebrated
printers: Michel Vascosan, Robert Etienne, and Jean de Poigny.
He was the author of several works besides those that have
been mentioned. (Biog. Univ. vol. iii. p. 201.)
Symphorien Champier, Doctor in Theology and Medicine, a
native of Lyons, who was physician to Anthony Duke of
Lorraine when he accompanied Louis XII. to the Italian war,
graduated at Pavia in 1515, and, after laying the foundations of
the Lyons College of Physicians, and enjoying the highest
honours of his native city, died about 1540. (Aikin’s Biog. ii.
579.) His medical and other works are of little repute, but
among them are two or three which may be regarded as imitations
of Emblem-books. We will just name,—Balsat’s work
with Champier’s additions, La Nef des Princes et des Batailles
de Noblesse, &c. (Lyons, 4to goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1502.);
also, La Nef des Dames vertueuses cōposee par Maistre Simphoriē
Champier, &c. (Lyons, 4to goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1503.)
“Bible figures,” too, again have a claim to notice. A very fine
copy of “Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel,” which
belonged to the Rev. T. Corser, Rector of Stand, near Manchester,
supplies the opportunity of noticing that it is decidedly
an Emblem work. It is a folio, of 100 leaves, containing forty-one
plates, of which one is introductory, and forty are on
Scriptural subjects, unarranged in order either of time or place.
The work was published in Paris in 1503 by Anthoine Verard,
and is certainly, as Brunet declares, ii. c. 1254, “une imitation
de l’ouvrage connu sous le nom de Biblia Pauperum.” There
are forty sets of figures in triptychs, the wood engravings
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
being very bold and good. Each is preceded or followed by a
French stanza of eight lines, declaring the subject; and has
appended two or three pages of Exposition, also in French.
The Device pages, each in three compartments, are in Latin,
and may thus be described. At the top to the left hand, a
quotation from the Vulgate appropriate to the pictorial representation
beneath it; in the centre two niches, of which David
always occupies one, and some writer of the Old Testament
the other, a scroll issuing from each niche. The middle compartment
is filled by a triptych, the centre subject from the New
Testament, the right and left from the Old. At the bottom are
Latin verses to the right and left, with two niches in the centre
occupied by biblical writers. The Latin verses are rhyming
couplets, as on fol. a. iiij, beneath Moses at the burning bush,
“Lucet et ignescit, sed non rubus igne calescit,”—It shines and
flames, but the bush is not heated by the fire. In triptych, on
p. i. rev. are, Enoch’s Translation, Christ’s Ascension, and the
Translation of Elijah.
The Aldine press at Venice, A.D. 1505, gave the world the
first printed edition of the “Hieroglyphica” of Horapollo.
It was in folio, having in the same volume the Fables of Æsop,
of Gabrias, &c. See Leemans’ Horapollo, pp. xxix-xxxv. A
Latin version by Bernard Trebatius was published at Augsburg
in 1515, at Bale in 1518, and at Paris in 1521; and another
Latin version by Phil. Phasianinus, at Bologna in 1517. Previous
to Shakespeare’s birth there were translations into French in
1543, into Italian in 1548, and into German in 1554,—and down
to 1616 sixteen other editions may readily be counted up.
John Haller, who had introduced printing into Cracow in
1500, published in 1507 the first attempt to teach logic by
means of a game of cards; it was in Murner’s quarto entitled,
“Chartiludium logice̦ seu Logica poetica vel memorativa
cum jocundo Pictasmatis Exercimento,”—A Card-game of Logic,
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
or Logic poetical or memorial, with the pleasant Exercise of pictured
Representation. It is a curious and ingenious work, and
reprints of it appeared at Strasburg in 1509 and 1518; at Paris,
by Balesdens, in 1629; and again in 1650, 4to, by Peter
Guischet. As an imitation of Brandt’s Ship of Fools, so far as
it relates to the follies and caprices of mankind, mention should
also be made of Murner’s “
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.sr t |!e!|[e/]|
.sr h |